Senior PvP designer tweets: The Scorch Cannon & PVP (Destiny)

by INSANEdrive, ಥ_ಥ | f(ಠ‿↼)z | ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ| ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, Saturday, August 25, 2018, 07:27 (2359 days ago)

(Thanks to Gamasutra for the heads up)

Glad to see people have been generally having fun with Scorched so far - eager to see how everyone likes the team version going live in an hour!

— Andrew Weldon | he/him (@kungfusquirrel) August 24, 2018

I've seen a few comments on the projectile speed; thought I'd discuss briefly how I tuned that value!

— Andrew Weldon | he/him (@kungfusquirrel) August 24, 2018

There's a lot of discussion that can be had around any design decision even in something silly like Scorched - I like to focus on lower stakes decisions as examples of the process, as it's way less likely that people will start aggressively arguing with each other over it :)

— Andrew Weldon | he/him (@kungfusquirrel) August 24, 2018

So for the Scorch Cannon - if you've played Destiny, you've noticed that the Fallen are bringing in their armory. Again.

And it's a pretty aggressive weapon, with a fast projectile and a fast rhythm between firing and impact. Almost a "flam" for the drummers out there.

— Andrew Weldon | he/him (@kungfusquirrel) August 24, 2018

This is super satisfying against AI (and against other players) but fighting against it in PVP with no tweaks is, at most engagement distance, not dissimilar from fighting rocket sniper rifles. Not the best time on the receiving end, and a pretty one-note gameplay experience

— Andrew Weldon | he/him (@kungfusquirrel) August 24, 2018

When you're fighting AI, you can do whatever the hell you want to feel powerful and amazing and have a grand ol' time.

Against other players... at some level, dying still has to be "fun"

— Andrew Weldon | he/him (@kungfusquirrel) August 24, 2018

And we can actually to Destiny's PVE content for reference! Most weapons enemies use are relatively slow-moving projectiles. Those that aren't tend to charge up and telegraph their existence. Melee enemies can count as "projectiles" in that they have to close the gap to do damage

— Andrew Weldon | he/him (@kungfusquirrel) August 24, 2018

Our combatants and sandbox teams, being the skilled designers they are, have tuned this to create a dance in which movement, positioning, and timing all are as much a part of the "fun" combat loop as the shooting itself

— Andrew Weldon | he/him (@kungfusquirrel) August 24, 2018

So, by extension, turn this back around to our super-powered exploding projectiles - let's slow them down!

— Andrew Weldon | he/him (@kungfusquirrel) August 24, 2018

I spent some time running two game clients to get a feel for what the reaction time was going to feel like. Even without dodging, it was important that you'd have a moment of "oh shiiiiit" to realize what's about to happen.

— Andrew Weldon | he/him (@kungfusquirrel) August 24, 2018

Once I thought the gap between firing and impact worked, we took it back into the playtest lab and found that the one-note gameplay had changed! Now the game had turned into leaping and dodging between airborne projectiles while trying to shoot down opponents

— Andrew Weldon | he/him (@kungfusquirrel) August 24, 2018

Hitting midair targets now took more effort and target leading, which made dodging more viable. And the airburst strategy became available - the faster projectile would just miss before you could react. Now you could learn to time your detonations aginst airborne targets!

— Andrew Weldon | he/him (@kungfusquirrel) August 24, 2018

The end result is the version of the mode you're playing this week. Is that the final tuning? I don't know! I know some people feel it's a bit too slow, and I did feel in my own games at home that maybe target leading could be improved slightly

— Andrew Weldon | he/him (@kungfusquirrel) August 24, 2018

But, that's for Future Us to decide after this Labs playlist closes down on Tuesday morning. For now, hope you enjoyed this look at the process of settling where we did, and how just even just one value in a silly mode is an involved and iterative process.

— Andrew Weldon | he/him (@kungfusquirrel) August 24, 2018

That Senior PvP designer, by the way, is Andrew Weldon. You know, just in case you missed that. :P